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717 
growth. * * * On‘several occasions we also noticed that, when we placed a 
little of the old, white growth of micrococci which had been kept for some months 
in a fresh soil of agar-agar, yellow growths of micrococci were developed which 
sometimes grouped themselves in tetrad forms. But we can not draw hasty 
conclusions from any of these observations. * * * Some further researches 
will be necessary to decide whether the different forms of micrococci which we 
obtained in our attempts at cultivation from the blood of sufferers from beriberi 
are of different species, or whether they are not varieties of the same one. 
Objections may be advanced that in these fifteen cases the bacteria did not oecur 
in the blood, but that they were collected by an accidental contamination during 
manipulation and so entered the nutrient media.” 
It may be added that all of the animal experiments of the Dutch investigators 
were entirely inconclusive in character. 
Stanley examined the blood in 30 cases of beriberi occurring in Shanghai. 
In each instance 1 cubie centimeter of blood was collected under aseptic 
precautions from the median cephalic vein, and inoculated into various culture 
media. In all, 150 cultures were made, All the tubes excepting two remained 
sterile. These developed Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus and Micrococcus tetra- 
genus. He also injected 1 cubic centimeter of blood from beriberi cases into 
each of six rabbits. These animal experiments and others in which moldy rice 
was employed were completely negative. Stanley concludes that the blood in 
beriberi is sterile and that the organisms found by Pekelharing and Winkler do 
not stand in any causal relationship to the disease. His experiments carried on 
with the object of detecting whether a specific toxin was present in the rice were 
likewise negative. 
Ellis,* who had an opportunity in the government lunatic asylum of Singapore, 
of studying a large amount of beriberi, made a number of blood examinations 
in order to verify Pekelharing and Winkler’s claims. However, he completely 
failed to find a bacillus in the blood, and his cultures made from the spleen, 
stomach, nerves, and other organs at post-mortem examinations likewise were 
negative. 
Glogner, whose work on beriberi is frequently mentioned, says that the disease 
is simply a multiple neuritis which is very common under tropical conditions, 
but which also occurs in Europe. He calls attention to the fact that whereas in 
Europe, when the symptoms occur in connection with diphtheria, typhoid, lead 
or aleohol poisoning, the etiology is generally obvious, in the Tropics the origin 
of the malady is as a rule not easily detected. This author examined the blood 
from the spleen of 98 cases of beriberi. He claims that in 63 he found extra- 
globular bodies rich in pigment, which were different from the hemacba of 
malaria. Glogner regards these bodies to be the specific cause of beriberi. 
Fajardo” has claimed the discovery of another protozojn in the blood of 
beriberi patients which is very similar but not identical with the malarial 
parasite. He also regards this organism as the specific cause of the disease. 
Rost ™ observed an outbreak of beriberi in the Meeklita gaol, India, and which 
occurred at about the same time that a disease attacked pigeons in the vicinity 
% Stanley: The Nature of Beriberi. Journal of Hygiene (1902), 5, 369. 
“Ellis: A Contribution to the Pathology of Beriberi. London Lancet (1898), 
2, 985. 
* Glogner: Ein weiterer Beitrag zur Aetiol. der mult. Neuritis in den Tropen., 
Virchow’s Archiv. (1895), 141, 401. 
8 Fajardo: Von der Haematozoarie der Beriberi und deren Pigment. Centralbt. 
fiir Bacteriol. (1898), 1 Abt., 24, 558. 
7 Rost: The Cause of Beriberi. Brit. Med. Journ. (1902), 2, 835. 
